Think outside the box
In Eastern meals, soup is the last and most fanciful dish. However, in Western culture, soup is the first dish, served as an appetizer. There are eating styles, each ingenious and with a taste; why would art be any different? In the past, the teacher of a painting course sets a topic, then lets the child draw the content. When faced with a set topic, it is often the case that children cannot draw or do not know what to draw. Most people have experienced their mind going blank when they most need it. Why not change the fixed habit of creation, find inspiration even without a theme, and think about art from a different perspective?
Lead children to discover the shapes from the occasional scenes of life, to capture the visual images of nature, even if it is sometimes unclear. The tide, clouds, and the beach can be associated with other things. Explore those that may seem pointless or useless to others; even an insignificant wall or leaky ceiling can be an image of something else. The ancients watched the white clouds change, from just white clouds into a dog. Modern art should be done in this way. Picasso was a master at this; he combined the handlebar and seat of a an old bicycle and turned it into Tête de taureau (Bull’s Head).
If you use this open-minded training method to help a child imagine in life, it will be easy for him or her to discover art anytime and anywhere. Even very small children can learn from it, quickly gaining an imagination full of creativity; and older children, from seemingly invisible images, can develop variant thinking, helping them to break from typical depictions and develop unique modeling.
Figure 1.
WenQi Du (11 years old)
Untitled